Ceci n’est pas un chapeau: What is Art, and What is Fashion in Degas’s Millinery Series?

Abstract

In the past decade, Edgar Degas’s milliner series (1876–1910) received new attention thanks to a youtube video by the Art Institute of Chicago and a joint exhibition in Saint Louis and San Francisco. A consensus has formed to interpret the works, which show milliners and customers contemplating hats, as artistic self-reflection, with the milliners standing for artists and the hats for artworks. This article picks up where the research left off, adding to the interpretation of the works as artistic self-reflection insights on the history of palette pedagogy and literary sources so far not connected to Degas. It also adds a “why,” locating the analogy of hats and art in Degas’s oeuvre, comparing it to that of his contemporaries, and contributing a pragmatic answer to the 19th century discussion: “What is art for?”